Businesses have a number of tools at their disposal to help with talent retention. Below are a number of methods available to employers that can help create a supportive and loyal team. These are proven methods of improving your talent retention, but is by no means an exhaustive list.
EVP:
EVP (Employee Value Proposal), is the sum of all the things an employer offers to attract or retain talent. It’s one of the more powerful tools you can employ to ensure people want to stay with your company. EVPs aren’t limited to just salary and bonuses – they comprise several things, and there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach. EVPs are typically individual to each company – each company is different and has different things they can offer to candidates.
While an EVP is an essential tool in your recruitment kit, it’s not something you can develop and forget about. Other companies update their offering frequently, and as employee’s needs are constantly changing, you must ensure that what you’re offering is attractive. Doing so will drastically improve your chances of retaining your current talent and attract new candidates.
To find out more about EVPs, read our EVP blog post.
DEI:
DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion, is an increasingly important feature of recruitment. There is evidence to show that certain groups are under-represented in some industries. Talent Works recently published a whitepaper that showed the number of women working in technology has dropped. ONS data also shows that neurodivergent people and those with learning difficulties or mental illness have the lowest employment rates.
By being more inclusive and diverse, businesses often find that they reach more diverse audiences and have more varied ideas and contributions.
There are pitfalls to watch out for when developing a DEI strategy, though. Companies often think that hiring people from as many ‘groups’ as possible, will make them more diverse. This can actually lead to ‘tokenism’ – individuals may end up feeling uncomfortable due to being the ‘outsider’.
Doing the utmost to remove bias from all stages of recruitment is something companies should all strive to do. There are various methods of doing this – our recent blog on DEI outlines a number of these.
Employer Brand:
Though your Employer Brand is not something you can ‘do’, it is something that can make a significant contribution to your talent retention. Your Employer Brand is how you communicate your unique attributes as an employer and how your business is perceived. Having a great Employer Brand therefore, relies on you being mindful of your employees and treating them well. They will, in turn, advocate your company to others as a great employer.
Great storytelling can also go a long way to improving your Employer Brand. You might be doing all the right things, but just not getting your story out there in the right way. Being able to show people exactly how great it is to work with you is different than just being great to work for. You need to be able to market yourself well.
Career Growth:
This one is a more obvious tool than the others, but perhaps one of the most important for retention. Employees all have their own career plans and goals. Ensuring opportunities are there to progress within the business can help create a work environment where people want to stay and climb the ladder. That being said, there’s more to it than just making sure opportunities are there for your staff. You have to develop plans with your team and find out what their aspirations and strengths are. Having a company where there is constant opportunity and progression can be quite a significant task. It often requires dedicated training staff (often a team) and a detailed plan . Many career-minded people will look for for this when joining a business – they want to know that their hard work and ambition is rewarded.
Having opportunities for career growth can help attract talent too, as your company will stand out from others who are not so forward-thinking.
Learning & Development:
L&D can be a significant draw for many candidates. Some businesses offer financial or other support to employees to help them develop their skills and learn new ones. With higher education costs being what they are, this can really add value for some. As the person gains more skills and knowledge, it can be a no-brainer for a company, particularly if the skill is something in high demand.
An additional benefit of companies investing in L&D is that employees will feel like their employers care about them and are willing to help them grow. With that, comes increased loyalty to the company and improved talent retention. By advertising vacancies within the business, you can save money on recruitment as well as giving your existing employees the opportunity to develop their careers.
Having a great L&D policy can also increase people’s motivation. People are more likely to want to work hard and achieve their goals if they feel supported and appreciated. This will have the knock-on effect of increased productivity, which should improve business performance.
Social Media
How can social media improve your talent retention?
There are a number of ways social media can play a part in retaining your best talent. You can use it to spotlight employees – this is useful for a number of reasons; it contributes towards your Employer Brand, it shows that you care about and value your employees and also acts as a testimonial to your company culture. Talent Works often share interesting updates such as volunteering and personal achievements from employees. We value the diversity of our team and are interested in what our people do. It’s a small gesture to share things like this from the company social accounts, but can have a big impact.
Social media has been shown to increase employee engagement and can be used to keep employees aware of what’s going on in other parts of the business.
Work Model
During the pandemic, the business world had to adapt quickly and offer alternative arrangements for staff that used to work on-site. The companies that could, tried to remain open and provided staff the means to work from home.
Naturally, many workers wanted to continue with this once lockdowns started to ease. A number companies found productivity wasn’t negatively affected by remote working and employees wanted it as a permanent option. Some preferred a hybrid model (a mix of remote and office-based) and others wanted to get back to the office. One thing we’ve identified, is that it’s different for everyone. As a business, it’s useful to specify a ratio of office & remote work, or allow employees to choose. Forcing people to choose one or the other rarely works, and there’s less reason now to request people work in an office.
Summary
As outlined above, businesses have a number of tools at their disposal to improve talent retention. There isn’t one method that works better than others – a mix of all of them will net you the best results. The best advice, is to focus on what is achievable right now. Focusing on DEI may be more beneficial to your company, or it could be that your EVP needs a refresh. Any business needs to do some research before committing to making any of the improvements mentioned above. Once you are certain of your needs though, investing time in any of these areas will be beneficial.
If you’re thinking about working with a provider of RPO or Embedded Talent solutions, we’d love to pitch for you. With specialisms in the tech sector and helping businesses expand their technical and digital capacities, we help some of the world’s most exciting enterprises scale.
As an RPO and Embedded Talent solution provider based in the UK, US, and more recently, South Africa, our teams have truly global reach and can help you expand into new territories.
To find out more about how our flexible approach to recruitment can help you or to let us know more about your future recruitment projects, contact us.